THE ALPINE ZONE OF MOUNT ST. ELIAS. 71 



tries whatsoever in the Sitkan archipelago beyond the energetic 

 stamp-mill of the Treadwell Mine on Douglas Island, and the 

 limited placer diggings of Juneau City. Until a market is created 

 for its large natural resources of food-fishes, the little canneries 

 which our people have started here will not develop ; nor will the 

 timber be of much commercial importance until the great reser- 

 voirs of the lower coast are exhausted. Statisticians and political 

 economists can easily figure out the time when a population of 

 twenty-five or thirty millions of our own people will be living upon 

 the Pacific coast alone ; then the real value of those latent re- 

 sources * of the Sitkan watery wilderness must be patent to a most 

 indifferent calculator. 



With this survey of the Alexander archipelago fixed on our 

 minds, we pass from it through the bold Cross Sound headlands 

 that loom above those storm-churned swells of an open ocean, which 

 break here in unceasing turmoil, and we sail out into an area 

 that charts tell us is the " Fairweather ground," over which that 

 superb peak itself and sister, Crillon, stand like vast sentinel- 

 towers, rearing their immense bulk into many successive strata of 

 clouds, until the elevation of thirteen thousand and fourteen thou- 

 sand feet is reached, sheer and bold above the sea. This great ex- 

 panse of the Pacific Ocean between us and Kadiak Island, five 

 hundred and sixty miles to the west, and again down to Victoria, 

 nine hundred miles farther to the south, was the rendezvous of the 

 most successful and numerous whaling fleet that the history of the 

 business records. In these waters the large " right " whale did most 

 congregate, and the capture of it between 1846 and 1851 drew not 

 less than three and four hundred ships with their hardy crews to 

 this area backed by the Alaskan coast They never landed, how- 

 ever, unless shipwrecked, which was a rare occurrence, but cruised 

 " off and on " with the majestic head of Mount Fairweather as their 

 point of arrival and departure. 



* A few small saw-mills have been erected at several points in this Sitkan 

 district to supply the local demand of trading-posts and mining-camps. With 

 reference to quality or economic worth, the timber found herein may be 

 classified as follows, in the order of its value: 1. Yellow cedar (Cupressm 

 nutkaen&is) and Thuja gigantea, the red variety. 2. Sitkan spruce (Abies sit- 

 kensis). This is the most abundant. 3. Hemlock (Abies mertensiana). 4. 

 Balsam fir (Abies canaden&is). The finest growth of this timber is found upon 

 Prince of Wales Island, Admiralty, and Kou Islands, within the Alaskan lines. 



